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Malpertuis (1971, Belgium) (aka
The Legend of Doom House)
In Belgian director Harry Kümel's dramatic, fantasy
Euro-horror, arthouse film - a unique, atmospheric and unpredictable
masterpiece with a bizarre, moody, eerie, mythical and macabre story
(with numerous plot twists) about a haunted and 'damned' house:
- the striking opening title credits, disintegrating
into dripping, blood-red letters (see left)
- the opening scene of blonde-haired, blue-eyed young
sailor Jan (Mathieu Carrière) and his arrival at his home
port - where he vainly went looking for his Beacon Quay childhood
home (it had disappeared and was replaced by a fishing shop); he
followed a woman he thought was his sister - she was actually Bets
(French pop singer Sylvie Vartan), a sultry, blue velvet-dressed
cabaret singer and working girl in the Venus Bar, a gaudy bordello
in the town's red-light district, where he was bloodily beaten in
the head during a brawl with Sylvie's pimp and left unconscious
- after a dissolve and spinning, blurred camera, he
found himself shanghaied; he awoke (virtually imprisoned) in a nautical-themed
bedroom (of his own imagination?) at the home of his sinister family
- the title's mystifying and ominous grand, labyrinthine home known
as Malpertuis (translated 'fox's den,' 'cunning house,' or 'evil
house'); it was inhabited by a number of off-beat, insane and strange
relatives and hangers-on (awaiting an inheritance), and surrounded
by misty grounds with decaying ruins and bare trees
- the first views of corpulent, bed-ridden family patriarch,
Jan's strange uncle Quentin Cassavius (Orson Welles), living in an
enclosed upstairs suite; always ravenous and pounding on the floor
for cowering servants to bring him food: ("He's hungry again!
He wants more to eat...So close to death and all he thinks about
is food. He stuffs himself Iike a pig, but he won't live any longer.
No one is immortal, not even the great Cassavius"); the dying
Cassavius was lying back on his enormous, crimson-hued bed framed
by curtains, reclining in tuxedo-like pajamas on silk bedsheets
- the five roles (three were multi-faceted) of Susan
Hampshire (in various disguises) - (1) Jan's sweet, reassuring and
naive older sister Nancy, (2) beautiful and mysterious redhead Euryale
with often downcast eyes, and (3) passionately promiscuous, black-garbed
spinster and temptress Alice; the actress' fourth and fifth brief
roles were as a nurse, and as Jan's present-day wife Charlotte
The Many Character Roles of Susan Hampshire
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Nancy
Jan's Pure Sister
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Redhead Euryale
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Temptress Alice (or Alecto)
One of the 3 Furies
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- the deathbed scene of Uncle Cassavius divulging
the conditions of his last will and testament that were read by
Eisengott (Walter Rilla) to the group of depraved misfits gathered
around - it was specified that all would acquire his vast wealth
and inheritance equally - but only if they remained in Malpertuis
for the rest of their lives (literally entrapped and kept prisoner),
and the last two (if male and female) were required to marry: ("Each
beneficiary will receive an annual income in proportion to the
total estate. However, from that moment on, each beneficiary shall
remain at Malpertuis. They may never leave the house. They shall
undertake to live here until the end...Everything at Malpertuis
must remain unchanged. The entire estate shall go to the last survivor.
If the last two survivors are a man and a woman, they have to marry.
They then inherit Malpertuis and all that goes with it")
- strange circumstances: after Cassavius' tomb was opened
by Jan, his corpse had transformed into a stone statue; and it was
rumored that Cassavius had wanted to create a "master race" of
blonde haired, blue eyed people: ("He talked about a master
race...Yes, a new golden age. Blonde hair, blue eyes, whatever")
- he had become the bullying, controlling, and powerful ruler of
his own circumscribed world
- the scene of Alice's naked (body-double) seduction
of Jan in a locked, dark blue-draped room, matching the blue of Sylvie's
and Nancy's dresses; she approached him with the inviting words: "I'm
a woman. I want you to love me"
- the plot revelation in the devastating climactic,
plot-twisting ending of the other-worldly secrets of Malpertuis -
during Cassavius' voyages to the Greek isles, he had found that the
inhabitants were previously-abandoned and forgotten ancient Greek
gods; Cassavius imprisoned and captured the ghosts of these gods,
returned to Malpertuis, and had their spirits sewn by taxidermist
Philaris (Charles Janssens) into the skins of normal men and women;
they were condemned to live out their eternal lives in this restricted
form - Cassavius' last wish was for them to mate and produce a new
race of demi-gods; he was hoping that eventually, one of his mortal
descendents (nephew Jan or niece Nancy) would have a child after
sex with one of the Greek gods, in order to create a new age for
mankind
- the secrets of Malpertuis were described by Euryale
in her own words: ("The last gods of Greece. Cassavius discovered
us on an island in the Ionian Sea. There were only a few gods left.
The rest had disappeared, because people no longer believed in them.
Cassavius abducted those defenseless ghosts and brought them to Malpertuis.
The monster instructed his sIave Philaris to sew that once proud
company into miserable human skins")
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Euryale Removing the Human
Skin of Malpertuis' Inhabitants
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A 'Last Supper" Set-Up
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- in the striking conclusion, the outer human skin
(or masks) of Malpertuis' inhabitants were ripped off to reveal
the underlying features of marble statuary; to save Jan, Euryale
had frozen or petrified them in an artfully-arranged "Last
Supper" styled setup
- Euryale's revelation that she was one of the three
Gorgons, who claimed she was immortal and unchanging because she
hadn't been forgotten like the others: ("Cassavius didn't dare
change anything about me. All the others perished because they were
forgotten. I alone have never been forgotten. I'm immortal. My name
is Gorgon. I am Love, I am Death. Jan, you force me to be your destiny.
Bitter is the fruit of knowledge") - she reached out to Jan
for a fatal embrace, looked directly up at him with wide eyes after
kissing him - and turned him to marble!
- the coda (in the present day) and the posing of the
film's major question - was everything in Jan's disturbed and fevered
mind the result of his blow to the head?; as he was discharged from
a mental hospital, he was congratulated by his doctor for writing
such an imaginative diary during therapy: ("You have a fertile
imagination. The idea of abducting the last Greek gods while they're
waiting to die, to humiliate them and make them live the lives of
the petit bourgeois - that's a bit strange for a computer expert.
The insanity probabIy messed around with memories from when you were
young")
Leaving the Hospital and Returning to a Hallway
in Malpertuis
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- the film's Wizard of Oz-like ending (similar
to when Dorothy awakened from dream land and found all of her fantasy's
characters surrounding her as earthly companions); Jan (wearing
a dark gray suit) was escorted down the white-walled clinic corridors
by his overjoyed wife Charlotte (also Susan Hampshire); he recognized
other medical officers, visitors and patients who watched his departure;
in the film's final lines of dialogue, Charlotte spoke:
"How are you, darIing?" Jan answered: "I'm compIeteIy
cured, darIing"
- a second strange plot twist - after he kissed Charlotte,
he turned and the exit doors closed behind him; he found himself
back in one maze-like corridor of Malpertuis with brick walls lit
by flaming torches; he gazed toward his normal sailor persona who
walked hurriedly towards him; the film ended with a zoom-in and freeze-framed
close-up of sailor Jan's left eye
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Cabaret Singer/Prostitute Bets (Sylvie Vartan)
Jan Awakening From Unconsciousness in Malpertuis After
Bloody Beating
Bed-Ridden, Dying Family Patriarch Quentin Cassavius
- Jan's Occultist Uncle
The Reading of Cassavius' Will at His Deathbed
Cassavius' Corpse - Turned to Stone
Alice's Naked Seduction of Jan
Euryale's Revelation to Jan That She Was Unchanging
and Immortal ("My name is Gorgon")
Euryale Turning Jan to Stone
Released From the Hospital, with Wife Charlotte
in Present Day
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